Seeking the Star

Ch.8.


Hogwarts settled back into its school rhythm. The Gryffindor trio was slowly splitting into two pairs, with Hermione, as always, in the middle. It seemed that every year, something divided Harry and Ron, leaving Hermione to attempt to bridge their gap, or at least maintain both of her friendships. Hermione and Harry tended to study together in the evenings, taking occasional breaks for conversation. Hermione was positively fascinated with the new magic that Harry was learning, and wanted to know everything he did about it.

During the second week of classes, Ron had summoned his courage and asked Hermione to be his girlfriend, and she had happily accepted. Harry was pleased that his friends had finally gotten together, even if Ron did seem to be using his new position as \'boyfriend\' to keep Hermione from spending time alone with Harry. He did his best to demand her complete attention at mealtimes, and begged for help on his homework in Charms and DADA, the only two classes that they shared. Ron made pointed displays of his affection for Hermione, holding her hand in the corridors as they walked to class, randomly stopping to snog in the halls, or interrupting Harry and Hermione\'s conversations by coming over and wrapping his arm around her. Harry bore his behavior with patience, leaving the new couple to their privacy whenever Ron pressed for it. Hermione occasionally seemed embarrassed, but she really did have feelings for Ron, and attributed his possessive behavior to the newness of their relationship.

Harry had taken to wandering the halls at all hours. Sometimes, for his own wry humor, he would stalk around the castle behind Snape, his footsteps cloaked in a silencing spell. Snape had a good wandering route that traveled most of the frequently used areas of Hogwarts. Sometimes he was sure that Snape would notice him. It seemed that the man could smell him or something, and Harry had more than a few close calls when Snape spun suddenly around, sniffing the air and peering intently into the darkness. Sometimes Harry\'s presence seemed to make him nervous, other times they skulked the halls in perfect tandem, Harry\'s shorter legs somehow covering Snape\'s impossibly long stride. He imagined that it would probably be a very amusing scene, if one could see through invisibility cloaks, to watch the Potions Master swooping around a corner, only to be followed in precisely two steps by Harry Potter. Once Harry had gotten over the amusement of following the Potions professor, he still wandered his route often. He was following that route now, as he mulled over the excitement of the evening.

Harry and Hermione had been going over their Potions assignments, making sure that neither of them had missed any of the important parts of one of Snape\'s now-infamous one meter essays on the uses of a potion, the active properties of each of the ingredients, and how the ingredients of a potion reacted together to produce the potion\'s ultimate effect. Harry had just made a quip about writing something sarcastic in six inch high letters down the length of the parchment and handing that in instead.

\"Yes, definitely. Something to the effect of, \'Armadillo Bile has the possible effect of wit sharpening, but too much creates a caustic tongue. Use more sparingly.\'\" Harry quipped. Hermione giggled at his joke, which was truly nerdy enough only to be understood by Advanced Potions students. Younger students w\'t \'t required to know the properties of each individual ingredient, and thus wouldn\'t know that Armadillo Bile was highly acidic.

Ron interrupted them.

\"Harry, we need to talk.\" Ron\'s face was set in hard lines, and his eyes shone in a way Harry really didn\'t like. Harry waved Hermione off with the barest flick of his fingers, trying to reassure her with his eyes that he could handle Ron and that everything would be fine. She nodded minutely, gathered their things and moved to the other side of the Common Room. Harry motioned to Ron to sit, but he remainedndinnding, looming over Harry, who wuch uch shorter to begin with. Harry steeled himself and waited.

\"What\'s happened to you, Harry?\" Ron\'s voice was somewhere between accusatory and concerned. \"You either spend all your time studying, or with that git Snape...\"

\"He\'s not a git, Ron,\" Harry said quietly.

Ron began turning red, and Harry dropped his eyes. \"He\'s a git, Harry! Since when do you defend Snape? Since when do you not play pranks in Charms? You haven\'t done a single thing against the rules since we got here, and you\'re turning into a bloody Ravenclaw!\" Ron was ranting now. \"And you\'re so bloody quiet! Still a whiz at Quidditch, of course, but you\'re not like you were before anymore, Harry. Bloody extra classes that no one else takes, and Occlumency lessons you don\'t mind going to! And since when do you call Professor Dumbledore Albus?\"
Harry\'s head jerked up.

\"You...\" Ron seemed to lose some of his steam, \"you called him that in a dream.\"

Harry\'s features tightened slightly, then relaxed again. \"I\'ve been trying to tell you...\"

\"Like bloody hell you have! All this Schwhatis and Schwhosis, and Healing,\" Ron sneered, his voice rapidly rising in volume, \"and staying at Hogwarts over the summer instead of coming to the Burrow to visit and now spending all this time with my girlfriend!\" Harry sighed wearily.

\"I\'m not trying to steal...\"

\"The bloody hell you\'re not!\" Ron\'s voice had elevated to full roar.

Harry stood, tired of Ron\'s yelling and quite convinced that he wasn\'t going to be able to make him see reason. Harry had the sudden impulse to change Ron\'s Schema. All it would take was a moment, just a slight tweak of the threads, and Ron was looming so close that the touch would have been barely noticeable...

\'Harry James Potter!\' The voice in his head that sounded suspiciously like Hermione at her most righteous red hid him from the temptation. \'He is your friend! Or was, at least. You have no right to do that to any human being!\'
\'I\'m not so sure about that anymore,\' Harry-voice answered Hermione-voice.
\'But he\'ll come around on his own. Or he won\'t. But that choice isn\'t yours, and you know it.\' Harry voice could only sigh in agreement with Hermione-voice\'s logic, and his temper and desire faded quickly. Back in control of his impulses, Harry sighed and looked Ron in the eye, summoning all of his powers of non-Schematic persuasion for one final try.

\"No, Ron, I\'m not. She was our friend before she was your girlfriend, and I assure you I have absolutely no desire to steal her fro from you.\" Harry couldn\'t help but mentally chuckle at the very thought. His preferences were such that Ron\'s jealousy was an entirely moot point, but Harry decided that particular conversation (which with Ron would just meant arguments about his sexuality) was probably best saved for another day. \"Further, you haven\'t made any effort to listen to what I\'ve tried to tell you about how and why I\'ve changed, and frankly I\'m tired of being berated for being myself.\" He shouldered past the larger boy. \"I\'m going to bed.\"

But Harry did not go to bed. He was agitated and restless, and sleep was far from him. He hoped that a few hours of Snape-like stalking would settle his mind enough so that he couleep.eep. Harry put on his invisibility cloak, which thankfully still covered him, closed his bedcurtains, applied a silencing charm to his shoes, and left Gryffindor tower to wander the corridors. And now, somewhere along the way, he had left his habitual route and ended up in a corridor he didn\'t recognize. Or rather, it looked like approximately five hundred other Hogwarts corridors. Harry shrugged and kept walking down it, figuring he\'d come to someplace familiar eventually. He was stopped by two familiar voices.

\"Man-sssnake, where isss you? We can sssmell you.\" Harry jumped, shocked to hear the familiar Parseltongue.

\"Dubhe and Phecda?\"

\"Over heresss, man-sssnake.\" Harry looked over at the wall and saw the familiar door to his summer rooms, guarded by the intertwined snakes. He dropped the hood of his invisibility cloak and ran his fingers gently over the two snakes. They untwined from their position on the door and wrapped around his wrist and up his hand.

\"Ahh, there you isss. Why were you being invisssable?\" Harry stroked the graceful heads of his door guardians, holding them close to his face and breathing his warmth onto them. They hissed with pleasure, gently squeezing his fingers.

\"Sssometimesss, it isss good to be alone.\" The snakes rubbed Harry\'s nose and cheek. Their affection made him feel better. The two snakes had kept him company through many long nights, wrapped around his hands and arms, or curled in his hair.

\"We underssstand, Harry Pottersss. Would you like to come back into your roomsss?\"

\"Very much. Thanksss, Dubhe and Phecda.\" The two snakes slid back into their post, and the door opened slowly.

\"You isss alwaysss welcome, man-sssnake. If you wantsss our company, just asssk.\"

Being back in his summer rooms was somehow a great relief. Up here, the feeling of all the other people in the castle was dim, and the suite signaled safety to him. His summer trng hng had always taken place outside these walls, so his rooms had become his place for privacy and recovery. Just walking in and sitting on his sofa, he felt calmer. Harry reached into his pocket and rang the little bell. Dobby dutifully appeared at his side.

\"What can Dobby get Harry Potter?\" Harry smiled, grateful suddenly for this ritual.

\"If you please, Dobby, I\'d like my teapot and some tea, some nightclothes from my room, and my Potions, Transfiguration, and Schema/Schemata books, along with my book bag and everything in it. If you could also make sure that the bathroom is properly stocked, I\'d be grateful.\" Dobby skittered off to accomplish his tasks, and Harry leaned back into the sofa, waving his hand lazily to start the fire. In the privacy of this room, he could actually utilize his wandless magical abilities, which he felt was a luxury in itself.

Several hours later, when his Potions essay was complete, his Transfiguration reading accomplished, and his Schemata exercises practiced, Harry fell into a deep, easy sleep in the only bedroom he had really come to think of as his own.

a/n-
prince of swords-disciplining emotions, meditative practices that strengthen mind and body. quiet before a storm, forging a sword that is a resourceful took as well as a destructive weapon.

Kristen- yes, i do feel it absolutely necessary that the story end up as a harry/snape pairing. quite honestly, i don\'t see anyone in canon that would be quite as good a partner for the harry i\'ve written as severus will be. het or slash is less important to me than the personalities of the characters, and i refuse to create a new character for my harry to have a het pairing with. this story is, if you haven\'t been able to guess yet, more about love and trust than about ways characters can have graphic sex. which isn\'t to say that there won\'t be plenty of sex later.
dumbledore is supposed to be a little scary, and he is, in fact, as sane as he\'s ever been. if you read the books as i do, albus is a little scary, and as the most powerful wizard alive, as well he should be.

everyone else-thanks for the reviews. critique is the bread of the writer. if you notice any errors, please tell me.